Frozen Heart
by Dogmatix
Summary: Post-movie. Thor is contemplating his ongoing battles with Loki, and kinda snaps.


Frozen Heart

Thor sagged to the ground in front of the Casket of Ancient Winter, heaving a huge, hopeless sigh as he did. Mjolnir he placed aside, unable to fight this enemy with lightning and thunder.

Here, in the treasure room in the Allfather's palace, all was silence, restful and patient. How unlike Thor's battles with his brother. Loki always had a quick word or barbed quip ready, but for all that words were his brother's battlefield, the Trickster never _listened_. Or perhaps, Thor was simply not a skilled enough fighter.

There was no dent Thor could make, no crack he could find, in the convictions his brother held. No matter how much he vowed that Loki was his kin, that Thor loved him with everything he had, that-

But what did it matter. He was so _tired_ of fighting a battle he could not win, but dare not abandon.

Unthinkingly, Thor's hand curled around Mjolnir's shaft, and he surged up, shouting, bringing the keening hammer down with all violence upon the Casket of the Jotun.

The clash sparked a wave of power, shoving Thor back three paces and leaving the casket unharmed. Denial swelled in Thor like a tide, choking him, stopping his throat with rage and filling his eyes with tears.

He would not lose his brother. He _would not_ lose his brother!

Yelling, he struck the casket again and again, raging at Odin, at himself, at Loki. Wave after wave of power shoved him back and time after time he came at it again, flaying the cold heart of Jotunheim with Mjolnir till the floor and walls were scorched black with the backwash of power, till the pedestal upon which the casket rested was cracked and crumbling, and still the casket glowed cold, contemptuous blue.

Rage clouded Thor's vision, driving thought from his mind and choking out all reason. Mjolnir cracked deep into a wall, staying where Thor had flung it from him. Unprotected, Thor's hands clutched the hateful object of power that had seduced his brother from his family, from his brother.

Immediately his hands began to blacken, his blood turning sluggish in his veins as the cold of a thousand thousand winters blew through his bones. Bellowing his unthinking, all-consuming rage, Thor only grasped it tighter, flinging his defiance into the heart of winter even as ice crept over his skin.

"You will not have him!" Thor heard himself yell, over and over as black frostbite gnawed up his arms past his elbows, but he was heedless of the cold, far past feeling pain.

"_He is mine!_" the prince of Asgard screamed at the casket, refuting Loki's every taunt and jibe, those barbed words that hurt Thor all the more for being directed at Loki himself. The frostbite slowed, coming up against an implacable will. Thor felt the ice slipping from his flesh and felt a fierce exultation. But the ice was merely seeking another way, and so it sank under his skin, slipping into bone and marrow even as cracked and blackened skin returned to healthy hues.

"**You will not have him!**" Thor bellowed in victory as his fingers flushed with life. But the frost had sunk in too deep, crept too far, and ice bit viciously at his core, slivers of pure winter striking from his bones into the furnace of a prince's heart.

TLTLTLTLTLTL

It was dark when he came to. Quiet and dark, and there was a hand soothing over his hair.

Thor frowned faintly. His head ached, but not from too much mead. He felt too hot and too cold in flashes. And his head was in someone's lap. What-?

Opening his eyes didn't help much, it really was very dark. Dim light only let him see the faint form of the someone whose lap held his aching head.

"Hzhu-?"

"Well, you've certainly done it this time," Loki drawled, but his hand never faltered.

Thor remembered; his rage, the frozen casket, the unexpected _pain_.

His chest felt on fire from cold. "Whu 'append?" he croaked, sluggishly bringing up a hand to lay it over his breastbone.

"Didn't dad ever teach you not to play with ice?" Loki asked dryly, but there was something behind the words, something.. pain? joy?

His heartbeat was slower, much slower than it should have been. And his flesh was cold under his hand. Not the cold of the dead, but the cold of a winter's day.

"What did I do?"

But his brother only placed one hand atop his, and for the first time in ages, Loki's hand was warm on his.

FIN


End file.
